Money obtained through phishing in the United States go to China, says the statement from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Hackers who obtain money from compromised business computers wire them afterwards to Chinese companies located near the Russian border. The FBI says that while various attacks are used, the notice identifies ZeuS, Backdoor.bot and Spybot as the fraudsters’ favorite malware.

Intermediary accounts in New York are typically used as staging points for the final transfer.

The “actors”, the FBI notes, generally try to transfer large amounts – between US$900,000 and US$1 million – but are “more successful in receiving the funds when the unauthorized wire transfers were under US$500,000”.